


Five Letters Thorin Oakenshield never sent

by Salvia_G



Series: Scholar of Dwarves [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Ardie said it first!, Epistolary, M/M, Omake, Thorin Feels, Thorin Oakenshield: bitter emo poet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salvia_G/pseuds/Salvia_G
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This omake was written in response to the many reviewers of <em>Scholar</em> who wanted a bit better view inside Thorin's head...and some of them seemed prepared to take his head off to get it!</p><p>So:  these five letters were written in the time between when Bilbo left Belegost and when Thorin left to go to the Shire on the eve of the Quest to Erebor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Letters Thorin Oakenshield never sent

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I own nothing, not Tolkien's lovely _The Hobbit_ nor the Peter Jackson films inspired by the book; and I am grateful for the chance to play in Middle Earth's playground too.
> 
> I humbly request that you read chapter twelve of _Scholar_ before you read this!

Bilbo’s note, that Ori carried to Balin:

 

By the time you read this, I will be gone from Belegost.

Bilbo

 

One:  the night Thorin received Bilbo’s goodbye note

 

_Was it all a lie but this, your last words to me?_

_‘By the time you read this, I will be gone from Belegost.’  For all our love, that such is the way you take your leave of me...Mahal!  I know not where you are or how you travel, and that I have driven you to leave in winter...I will go mad, not knowing how you fare or if you are safe.  Though you have betrayed me, did you think I did not love you?  I cannot sleep for worrying for your safety!_

_And as I walk Belegost in the small hours of the night, I wonder:  did you love me at all, or was it a ruse to gain my trust?  I think I was right that first time we fought:  you are and have always been a liar.   And now I cannot trust my hapless heart, for all it does is cry out your name.  Ah, my Bilbo!  I would do anything, give anything, to have you back, though you never loved me.  I do not believe you ever loved me._

_It is why I will never send this letter.  I carried you close and you stung me in the end, viper, and the poison still flows in me._

Bilbo’s letter from the Shire:

Dear Thorin,

 

I still think of you every day.  I do not ask if you do the same; rather, I hope you do not.  I do not like to think of you sad.

 

And I write to tell you how sorry I am that I left you in such a way, with only a short note and little explanation.  I wish I had told you that I went home face to face.  ~~I wish I had not had to come home at all.~~

 

Please, Thorin, be happy.

 

With love,

Bilbo

 

Two:  on receipt of Bilbo’s letter from the Shire

 

_Ah, you cruel viper!  If you did not want to leave, you would not have.  I do not think you did love me after all, at least, not as I love you.  I could never have left you.  And it was doubly cruel to leave me in Belegost when you know I cannot leave without risking my people’s home and so I cannot follow you.  I am trapped here and my heart has gone to the Shire._

_But I am glad you had not the courage to say goodbye to my face, for I am at least left this measure of dignity:  you have not seen how you have broken me.  I would have begged.  I do, I beg you—Ah.  Ah._

_I thought, these past months, that I had become accustomed to the pain, but I have become accustomed to nothing._

_And now you send soft words that break me again.  Would you see me happy?  Then you would not have betrayed me and you would not have left me._

_I do not think I am capable of happiness anymore.  My happiness left with you.  Duty and pride are all that are left to me._

Three:  on the occasion of the publication of _Enukhush Azanulbizaru_

 

_Ah, my viper, you have left behind a last sting for me!_

_I cannot stop it; I will not.  But that is all I have left in me to give you.  Do not ask for more._

_Only come back to me, please come back to me—that I would beg you if I let myself.  But I never will.  At least I have this:  a Dwarf will not give in._

Four:  One year to the day that Thorin received Bilbo’s goodbye note

_It has been one year since you left me._

_I have come to know myself a little better since you have left me—because you left me.  I have been proud all my life, the son of kings, and yet I did not know the pride that lived within me.  So many nights in this past year I have not slept, but have risen from my bed—that was our bed—and I have written to you.  My love for you is a still bleeding wound in my chest.  Yet my pride will not let me send a single letter._

_But I have gained a freedom therein, for I can write to you all that is in my heart, and I know that no matter what I write, it can give you no more power over me.  You have power enough over me.  Still.  Still.  I fear it will be always._

_I miss you more than I can say.  I wish that if I had to lose you, that we could have parted on better terms.  I wish I had had time for my anger to cool.  I wish we could have parted friends, though I fear I could not have kept my dignity.  I would have begged you to stay.  I would have promised anything._

_My pride is not much comfort, but I cling to it.  I will not lose anymore to you than I already have.  Only in these letters will I beg.  Then I can tell myself you did love me after all._

Five:  the night before Thorin leaves for the Shire

_I go tomorrow, to your Shire.  You will be with me, in my thoughts, each step; I know it.  I am resigned, after so long.  I had thought, until I saw you that first night, that I was immune to love’s curse.  Now I know it was held in abeyance only that the pain would be worse in the end._

_I long to see you and I dread it.  I wonder if the Hobbit who will be our burglar will know you.  I find it hard to imagine a Hobbit as a burglar, but you were always good at stealing away, weren’t you?  You left without a whisper._

_Ah, my Bilbo, my viper, my sanghivasha, how shall I do it?  How shall I go so close to you and not search for you, not find you, not beg that you come back to me?_

_And if you now belong to another?  How can you not, my lovely one?  They cannot all be blind in the Shire.  Not even my pride could withstand the blow, I think.  I cannot see you with another.  I fear what I would do._

_I cannot see you at all, my sweet, my treasured viper.  I cannot break any more than I have already on the eve of this quest; I must do everything I can to return our home to my people._

_It is all I have left to me.  You took all the rest.  One glimpse of you and I would be nothing but a broken Dwarf again.  So I will not go to you._

_But I will think of you every step, as I have every day since you left me._


End file.
